Riding Gear Dispatch

Despite having cancelled my phone alarm, I awoke early.
 
Dad was already up making coffee.
 
I spent the morning writing Dad’s House Dispatch while Dad and Cathy did various household tasks and errands.
 
In the afternoon we took Cathy’s jeep up to the historic – yet still active – mining district above Creede.

When I’d come in the previous night the sun had just set, so I’d been unable to appreciate that the cottonwoods along the Rio Grande were a belt of brilliant gold – at peak color. Cathy called it the rio del oro, the “river of gold”. On the high slopes some of the aspen were also peaking – though many had already shed most of their leaves.

It was an often-vertiginous ride to the once bustling town of Bachelor (something like 1200 hard-drinking miners in 1892, now little but a gradually shrinking clearing among the aspen). Creede is Cathy’s grandparents’ home town so she’s an incomparable guide; she knows all the old stories but is also up-to-the-minute aware of all the small-town characters and politics, which in the West can span whole regions.

Earlier in the day I’d been privy to one end of a very juicy phone conversation.

---

Back home we drank Moscow Mules (we all learned about them in Alaska last year; see More Epic Than Usual) and eventually Cathy mentioned a pile of gear in the corner. That led to me learning about her 1940s vintage saddle – only the second she’s had in her life. She also has, naturally, a pair of leather chaps almost as old as I am.

As a “rider” this was fascinating to me – I could completely identify with this stuff even though I’ve only ridden horses a few times. I should mention one of those times was up at Lost Trail Ranch which has been the Getz family’s ranch at the headwaters of the Rio Grande for three generations.

Talking about her gear only got Cathy started about her grandfather’s gear.

Like his chaps:

And his spurs.